Members Phantasm Posted August 19, 2006 Members Share Posted August 19, 2006 Ok, so it's pretty common knowledge that distortion pedals normally cause the loss of low end when used on a bass guitar. So, my question is... how do we put the low end back in? I've seen online that a lot of people use the Boss Bass EQ to do this. Specifically though, is there a common set of frequencies that you've noticed are lost? Do you put them back in post-Distortion, or pre-Distortion? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members oldivor Posted August 19, 2006 Members Share Posted August 19, 2006 biamp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ace Of Bass Posted August 19, 2006 Members Share Posted August 19, 2006 I biamp with the clean into a 2X15 and the distorted into whatever else. Works great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Phantasm Posted August 19, 2006 Author Members Share Posted August 19, 2006 Originally posted by Ace Of Bass I biamp with the clean into a 2X15 and the distorted into whatever else. Works great. What's your crossover point? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members oldivor Posted August 19, 2006 Members Share Posted August 19, 2006 Originally posted by Phantasm What's your crossover point? alot of people don't use cross overs. Just some EQing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Phantasm Posted August 19, 2006 Author Members Share Posted August 19, 2006 Originally posted by oldivor alot of people don't use cross overs. Just some EQing. Hence my original question, which frequencies are you EQ'ing? What are you putting back in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members oldivor Posted August 19, 2006 Members Share Posted August 19, 2006 Originally posted by Phantasm Hence my original question, which frequencies are you EQ'ing? What are you putting back in? Well on the bass side maybe bump up the lows alittle and on the highs side add some treble and mids and cut the bass a little. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ace Of Bass Posted August 19, 2006 Members Share Posted August 19, 2006 I just split the signal and run both channels full range.For an on/off switch I just break the signal to the distorted one. The clean channel is my normal bass tone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Zebra Posted August 19, 2006 Members Share Posted August 19, 2006 If you can't biamp, maybe have an EQ pedal post-distortion with everything in the lows maxed-out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tlaloc Posted August 19, 2006 Members Share Posted August 19, 2006 get a distortion pedal designed for bass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members henre Posted August 19, 2006 Members Share Posted August 19, 2006 Originally posted by Tlaloc get a distortion pedal designed for bass. MXR Blowtorch for the win, baby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jazz Ad Posted August 19, 2006 Members Share Posted August 19, 2006 You lose lows with the Fulltone Anyway, my swiss army knife for this kind of problem is the Boss LS-2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Phantasm Posted August 19, 2006 Author Members Share Posted August 19, 2006 Originally posted by Jazz Ad You lose lows with the Fulltone Anyway, my swiss army knife for this kind of problem is the Boss LS-2. Not with the Fulltone... I can usually find characteristics of other pedals that I like in the sound, but the low end suffers. When i boost the bass, it gets boomy. So I started wondering what exactly gets lost, I presume that it's mostly below 1k, but where the common ranges of decreased response are I was curious if anyone else knew already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bassfuzz Posted August 19, 2006 Members Share Posted August 19, 2006 Get a big muff (works for me anyway) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Phantasm Posted August 20, 2006 Author Members Share Posted August 20, 2006 Originally posted by bassfuzz Get a big muff(works for me anyway) I saw that was one of the pedals the guy from Failure used. If you listen to their "Magnified" album, the bass sounds are just amazing. He uses three pedals, one for overdrive, one for medium drive, and one for super-duper grindy drive. The Big Muff is the one for the super-grind. I also read that he uses the Boss Bass EQ pedals to help the low end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bassfuzz Posted August 20, 2006 Members Share Posted August 20, 2006 yeah the big muff is great for that super gritty stuff.as for low end problems, play with your amps eq, I really doubt a pedal is going to help but so much, you most likely can recover low end right at your amp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Apendecto Posted August 20, 2006 Members Share Posted August 20, 2006 I lost lows with the fulltone. Yo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anesthesia Posted August 20, 2006 Members Share Posted August 20, 2006 I Loose barely anything with my Boss ODB-3 In fact, it's rather boomy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Texas Noise Factory Posted August 20, 2006 Members Share Posted August 20, 2006 Originally posted by Phantasm I saw that was one of the pedals the guy from Failure used. If you listen to their "Magnified" album, the bass sounds are just amazing.He uses three pedals, one for overdrive, one for medium drive, and one for super-duper grindy drive. The Big Muff is the one for the super-grind. I also read that he uses the Boss Bass EQ pedals to help the low end. I think there are better recorded distorted bass tones on Fantastic Planet. Magnified is a cool album though. I think Greg's great tone was more due to the Wal bass he was playing. The Big Muff and a dunlop tremolo is what he used on Segue 1 from Fantastic Planet. That's what he told me anyways... They sounded sooo massive live. I use a Fulltone Bass Drive, and an Akai Unibass and my Tube SVT for my distorted sounds... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members zachoff Posted August 20, 2006 Members Share Posted August 20, 2006 The guitar models in the Line6 Toneport do not cut the low end at all & some of them sound really cool... I've not used the PODs but maybe that's the case with those as well?! I plan to check it out soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Phantasm Posted August 20, 2006 Author Members Share Posted August 20, 2006 Originally posted by Texas Noise Factory I think there are better recorded distorted bass tones on Fantastic Planet. Magnified is a cool album though. I think Greg's great tone was more due to the Wal bass he was playing. The Big Muff and a dunlop tremolo is what he used on Segue 1 from Fantastic Planet. That's what he told me anyways... They sounded sooo massive live.I use a Fulltone Bass Drive, and an Akai Unibass and my Tube SVT for my distorted sounds... I really don't buy into the Wal being as important as people think - and I'll tell you how I have that opinion. About 6 months ago I went on the Wal quest. It took quite a while to track one down and a whole lot of money. I finally got it in and after messing around with it for quite a while and trying as hard as I can, I turned it right back around out the door to a happy buyer in Canada. I went to Bass Central and spent a lot of time playing everything and ended up with a MTD 4-string with a Mahogany body and a fancy top (very much like a Wal, in that respect.) It doesn' thave the Wal electronics, but they didn't really float my boat (yes, I know that statement is sacrilidge to almost everyone who will read it...) most of the time I left them on 10 and maybe pulled up the vol for the pick attack because a lot of the other settings made the bass sound "muffled" to me, and I'm big on clarity. I did try tons of settings though. Believe me, I was heartbroken when I couldn't get the sound to happen for me and I didn't want to give up after the long search for the instrument. When you talked to Greg, did he say anything else of interest about the recorded tones? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members zachoff Posted August 20, 2006 Members Share Posted August 20, 2006 The best disto box I've ever played through is the MXR M-80. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ryanstanley Posted August 20, 2006 Members Share Posted August 20, 2006 id say biamping would be your best bet other than that, id say if you want non-boomy low end boost it at around 100k or so, after distortion. if its still too boomy, cut it at around 30k and below. just play with the eq for a while till it sounds good and id suggest a tube EQ for this, cause i would think that diode clipping could cause problems in a lot of the cheap stompbox eqs when using them on a distorted bass signal. but maybe not Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members J. Posted August 20, 2006 Members Share Posted August 20, 2006 I think blending in the dry signal of the bass is crucial for preserving low end and is a feature all bass OD/distortion pedals should have. I didn't care much for my BOSS ODB-3 but it didn't chop off my lows due to the blend feature. Whenever I use a distortion box not intended for bass it always hacks off a lot of low frequencies. I've never tried the fulltone though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Wolftopus Posted August 20, 2006 Members Share Posted August 20, 2006 I find that the Fulltone cuts a bit of the lows as well. It also seems to compress the tone which I really don't like, if I do a chord with distortion I want it to go boom. I've spent so much money on different distortion units for bass that I eventually just had one built for me. I heard recently about a bass distortion made from a Japanese company that I forget the name of that is supposed to be the best bass distortion money can buy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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